The 21^st Congress of the KKE was held from the 25^th until the 27^th of June 2021 at the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Party. The 21^st Congress approved the texts of the Theses of the CC, taking into account the discussion and their approval by the general assemblies of the Party’s Base Organizations (PBOs) and the Conferences. It also approved the report of the CC at the 21^st Congress as well as the report of work of the Central Auditing Committee (CAC). Τhe 21^st Congress adopted a Political Resolution that determines the tasks of the Party until the 22^nd Congress. Moreover, it adopted a separate Resolution on the work in the working class and its movement in promoting the social alliance and the role of the communists.

            Looking ahead to our 22^nd Congress, we express our determination to take steps forward in demonstrating more clearly the distinct role of the KKE as a strong, organized vanguard and a vehicle of revolutionary ideas.

            To take steps forward in organizing the working class, the urban self-employed, the toiling farmers, the youth, and women with a working-class–popular social position or origin in their unions, their associations, and organizations; to promote the coordination of their activity, their solidarity, their social alliance, and the development of their struggle in an anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly direction.

            Today we are more efficient in escalating the struggle and counter-attacking; in striving so that the daily struggles and the local–sectoral coordination of struggle gradually turn into a unified, nationally coordinated movement of the working class and its allies, going as mass as possible, being rooted in the workplaces, the sectors, and each region, in an anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly direction, against NATO and the EU. Only the KKE with its activity can guarantee such a nationwide and at the same time internationalist movement, as a guiding force to overthrow the current correlation of forces and open the way towards socialism.

            Until the 22^nd Congress we can decisively extend our ties with broader workers’–people’s forces, encouraging their more active involvement and activity in the workers’–people’s movement, their inclusion in the active circle of influence of the KKE, and their participation in all the great future social and political battles.

            Up to the next Congress, we can more resolutely and dynamically build many new PBOs and BOs of KNE, create militant cores of the Party and KNE everywhere, and renew our ranks with recruitments from the working class and its allied middle strata, especially from the youth and women.

 

THE INTERNATIONAL CAPITALIST SYSTEM IS PERMEATED BY A NEW SHARPENING OF ITS CONTRADICTIONS

 

            Today all contradictions of the international capitalist system manifest themselves, having old and new forms as well as some special characteristics. At the same time, all bourgeois theories about the new dynamics of the capitalist system as regards “new fair productive green models of a more fair redistribution of the wealth” and “reducing inequalities through the digital transition” are rejected, together with older theories adopted by opportunism such as “overcoming contradictions through globalization” and “the European common home of the peoples” which would secure “peace and social rising prosperity”. The domination of capitalism throughout the world, with its historically temporary victory due to the overthrows in the USSR and the states of socialist construction at the end of the 20^th century, cannot free it from its basic contradiction and decay.

• The new capitalist economic crisis of capital over-accumulation broke out —sooner than expected due to the pandemic— in almost all capitalist states. Due to the unevenness, this development plays a decisive part in the continuation of the more than 20-year tendency of change in the correlation of forces between the capitalist states, having the economic rise of China as its main expression. As a consequence, imperialist competition and contradictions about the distribution and control of the markets are sharpening, focusing on the energy resources, the mineral wealth, transports, the management of climate change and all things related to the management of the environment overall, as well as the generalized utilization of digitalization, the so-called “4^th industrial revolution”.
• Tendencies of regional and international economic–political and military–political alliances are underway. Through the intervention of the most powerful capitalist states, war–military imperialist conflicts and competition are intensifying at a regional level, including the danger of a more generalized imperialist war. These conflicts are taking place together with negotiations, exploratory talks, and temporary compromises. Any agreement and consensus that might be reached, with more or fewer retreats to the detriment of the one or the other side, will achieve an “imperialist peace” with a gun held to the peoples’ head, only deferring a new round of sharpened confrontation, military threats, and conflicts over who will obtain the biggest share in the distribution of the markets and the wealth-producing resources, in the control of their transport routes.
• The capitalist states —both the USA and EU members— are directly economically intervening to address the problem of the vast amount of over-accumulated capital with “Green New Deal” as their basic tool. Any reference to the protection of the environment is pretextual. The greater state intervention intends to form conditions and incentives for new profitable investments, utilizing digital technology and the “green transition” of the capitalist economy with the controlled depreciation of fixed capital (e.g. the closure of lignite-fired power stations, the withdrawal of conventional vehicles, the change of energy networks). Moreover, the EU emphasizes the promotion of “green transition” because it possesses inadequate hydrocarbon deposits (in contrast to the USA and Russia) and it has formed infrastructure to export commodities of “green technology”.
• No proposal of bourgeois management, either Keynesian or liberal, can annul or cancel the scientific laws of capitalist production, the race for profit, the anarchy, the unevenness, and the contradiction between the social character of production and the capitalist appropriation of its results. The measures of bourgeois management can only temporarily reduce the depth of the next crisis. The new cycle of “investments” and economic recovery will form the conditions for the outbreak of a new, deeper crisis of over-accumulation.
• The illusions about the possibility of a pro-people management of the system which would allegedly lead to a more socially fair, environmentally friendly, and pro-peace capitalism are completely shattered. The maintenance of the profitability of the new “green investments” and the monopoly groups overall requires a rise in the degree of exploitation of the workers, the extension of flexible working relations, and a manipulated labour power. Any temporary measures, aiming at preventing a basic level of household consumption from collapsing and unemployment from soaring, are taken to help capitalist profitability recover and to defuse people’s discontent. They do not constitute a progressive shift. They cannot tackle the increasing inherent contradictions of the capitalist system. The “Green New Deal” and the “digital transition” investments will lead to further accumulation of capital and profits; however, they will not be able to reduce the high unemployment rates or the relevant and absolute poverty because they are not accompanied by a general reduction in working time with a simultaneous increase of income from work. The “green projects” not only do not protect the environment —since they are not followed by relevant protection measures from natural dangers such as forest fires, floods, and earthquakes— but they also contribute to the destruction of forests, mountain ranges, and ecosystems; overall, they have multiple negative consequences. The people will be eventually called to pay for the new loans and shoulder the new burdens of the temporary state rescue of firms in difficulty and the support of profitability. The people will be further burdened with more expensive “green power supply” and they will be condemned to energy poverty, new inequalities, etc.
• The sharpening of the confrontation between the USA and China has an economic base and is also directly reflected at a political–diplomatic and military level. The new Democratic presidency of Biden in the USA demonstrates that this contradiction does not depend on which party has the majority. The US administration now places more emphasis on securing the cohesion of the Euro-Atlantic camp through the improvement of its relations with the EU.
• The EU staffs seek adjustments of the Community policy to address both the weakening of the EU in the economic competition with the US and China and the sharpening of unevenness in the capitalist growth of its member states. The power struggle for supremacy in the financial sector of the EU is sharpening after Brexit. This framework includes a series of processes leading to a shift towards an expansionary policy (revision of the Stability Pact, adoption of Eurobonds, etc.).

 

            Everything affirms that socialism is the answer to the acute people’s problems in the 21^st century:

• Today the people are faced with a widening gap, which nevertheless is not inevitable: On the one hand, there is the contemporary scientific and technological potential, the potential to develop productive forces and achieve social prosperity. On the other hand, there is the existing reality, which is characterized by the increase of exploitation; the relevant and absolute destitution; the feeling of insecurity that the salaried employees, the unemployed, the self-employed, the youth, and the pensioners deal with; the Clashing Rocks between work and maternity encountered by women.
• The rise of the level of socialization of production and of the productivity of labour provides the potential to increase the non-working time and its creative utilization, to reduce hard manual and monotonous labour, to enhance its creative content, and to further improve the general educational level of workers, who consist the main productive force of our era.
• The new potential of the exponential scientific and technological development significantly reinforces —compared to the past— the material basis to eradicate more quickly any form of individual and collective ownership.

 

            The truly new is the central scientific planning on the basis of workers’ power and social ownership. The truly progressive is the social relation that permits the utilization of the productive forces as a whole —the means of production, the growth and distribution of the workforce— and is expressed with scientifically defined objectives for people’s prosperity.

 

THE DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN REGION AND THE RELATIONS BETWEEN GREECE AND TURKEY

 

            The position of Greece in the inter-imperialist horse-trading and the competition in the wider area is determined by the aggressive stance of the Greek bourgeoisie, with the latter being more demanding to increase its share in the looting and distribution, which is a continuation of the intensification of the workers’ exploitation within the country. This stance is also manifested in tendencies of retreat as regards sovereign rights in the context of an imperialist compromise, in which stronger powers carry weight.

            The myths fostered by the bourgeois ideology, for instance that the Greek bourgeoisie is only defending its borders and does not have an offensive stance, are dispelled. Some elements proving its aggression are:

‣ Its participation in NATO and the increased state expenditure on NATO military offensive needs, ranking first in percentage of NATO armaments according to the latest data.

‣ The participation of the Greek Armed Forces in missions abroad, the aerial surveillance of borders of Balkan states, the participation in exercises in the Balkans and the Black Sea, the participation in military patrols in the Persian Gulf, and the delivery of a battery of Patriot anti-aircraft missiles in Saudi Arabia.

‣ The new military agreement with the USA, the political and principally military agreement with Israel, the dispatch of troops in Mali, Africa, and the readiness of the government to deploy military forces in the wider Sahel region.

‣ The utilization of US bases in Greece for offensive operations against neighbouring peoples, the participation in the encirclement of Russia, etc.

            The Turkish bourgeoisie also has aggressive intentions. In comparison to Greece, the Turkish state is ranked higher in the international imperialist system —it is a G20 member, it maintains an occupational army in 3 foreign countries (Cyprus, Syria, and Iraq), and it also has military bases and forces in other states such as Qatar, Albania, Sudan, Libya, and Azerbaijan. It claims territories of other countries, among them Greece, such as in the case of the Eastern Aegean islands, it claims maritime zones, it disputes the airspace, it attempts provocative acts against sovereign rights and borders in the area, and promotes Neo-Ottomanism by utilizing minority and religious issues.

            This context, together with NATO plans, determines the relations between Greece and Turkey and the competition between the bourgeois classes of the two states in their effort for their geostrategic enhancement in the region.

            It is within this context that the horse-trading and negotiations continue, aiming at the co-exploitation of the Aegean, the promotion of substantially dichotomous solutions regarding the Cyprus issue, and the unacceptable instrumentalization of the refugee–immigration issue for the sake of competition.

            It is within this context that the tendencies of compromise (through the signing of “imperialist peace” agreements and the appeal to international organizations such as the International Court of Justice) and of sharpening are alternating, carrying the risk of hot incidents and warfare.

            The KKE calls on the working class, the people, the young men and women to strengthen their struggle against imperialist war and its causes in a multifaceted way, to aim the heart of the problem, i.e. capitalist exploitation and inter-capitalist competition, to struggle so that the people and their children do not spill their blood for the interests of the bourgeoisie, NATO, the EU, the USA. They must not trust the bourgeois governments alternating in power, they must condemn en masse their dangerous policy that entangles the people in imperialist plans, interventions, and wars. The Greek people have common interests with the Turkish, the Russian, and other peoples. The peoples can live in peace if they dispose of the interests resulting in imperialist wars or unacceptable compromises to the detriment of their rights, leading them to the same painful result through different ways.

            The KKE wages an open ideological–political struggle both against the positions of bourgeois nationalism promoted by far-right, fascist, and reactionary voices and the positions of bourgeois cosmopolitanism. It especially struggles against the effort of reformist–opportunist forces to camouflage their identification with the policy of co-exploitation and the so-called win-win outcome —promoted by powerful sections of the Greek and Turkish bourgeoisie, of the US and the EU, and NATO— as an internationalist stance.

            The working class and the popular strata have an interest in intensifying the struggle for their own contemporary needs, against the monopolies and their power; to forge their own alliance in this struggle, opening the way for socialism–communism; to develop mutually beneficial relations among the peoples; to disengage themselves from NATO, the EU, and all imperialist alliances. We struggle for:

‣ The escalation of the struggle for the disentanglement of Greece from imperialist plans and wars, for the abolition of the Greece–US agreement on military bases, for the closure of the Souda base and the removal of all US military bases. To hinder the creation of new Euro-Atlantic infrastructure and the deployment of nuclear weapons in our country.

‣ No changes in borders and the treaties that determine them.

‣ All Greek officers and soldiers to return home from imperialist missions abroad. The Armed Forces have nothing to do in the Persian Gulf, in Mali, Africa, or any other part of the world.

‣ All US–NATO exercises aiming at encircling Russia and targeting other peoples must stop.

‣ No to military equipment at the service of NATO.

‣ The government decision to increase the term of military service in the army must be revoked and all the fair demands of the Armed Forces and conscript soldiers must be met.

‣ We struggle for a united and independent Cyprus, one and not two states, with one and only sovereignty, one citizenship, one international personality, without foreign armies and bases, without guarantors and protectors, with the people masters in their own land.

‣ We express our solidarity with the Palestinian people and demand that the government proceeds with the immediate recognition of the Palestinian state, based on the unanimous decision of the Greek Parliament in 2015. All agreements on economic, political, and military cooperation with the state of Israel, which kills the Palestinian people, must be abrogated.

 

            The Greek people, like all other peoples, are the ones to defend the territorial integrity of their countries from the point of view of popular interests, to express their internationalist solidarity, and to promote the joint struggle against imperialist wars, for the social revolutionary overthrow, for the peace and prosperity of the peoples.

 

THE CONDITION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST MOVEMENT AND THE ACTIVITY OF THE KKE

 

            The International Communist Movement continues to be in deep crisis. A fierce ideological–political struggle among the CPs continues to be waged. Most CPs have not yet proceeded to an in-depth examination of the socialist construction and experience in the USSR and the other socialist countries, of the conditions that led to the counterrevolution and the defeat of this first attempt, as well as of the strategy of the International Communist Movement (ICM).

            The KKE seeks the establishment of strong communist ideological–political ties, the expression of communist solidarity and mutual assistance in the elaboration of theses and joint actions. It actively expresses its solidarity with communists, militants of the people, and movements that are targeted by state oppression. It seeks to creatively draw on positive experience and study the negative experience of other sections of the ICM, of the multifaceted class struggle in their countries, without being distracted by the objective conditions and the historical roots and origins of each Party, by the conditions following the deep crises and splits during the 1990s.

            By this criterion, the KKE promotes bilateral contacts and relations, cooperation between working groups, exchanges of elaborations and documents with other Parties. It contributes to the works of the Editorial Board of the “International Communist Review (ICR)”, to the operation of the Secretariat of the “European Communist Initiative (ECI)”, to the Regional Meetings of CPs, and the International Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWP), despite the great differences existing among the participating Parties. It actively participates in the ongoing ideological–political struggle as well as in several joint actions that are decided. It follows the development of various Parties and the class struggle in their countries, together with their internal processes. The KKE gives priority to the Parties with whom it can develop a closer relationship for the revolutionary regroupment of the ICM, for the creation of the communist pole. We focus on the Parties participating in the ICR and the ECI, despite any differences.

            We seek closer cooperation with the CPs that can contribute to the revolutionary regroupment of the ICM to varying degrees, according to the following criteria:

            a) They defend Marxism–Leninism and proletarian internationalism, the need to form a communist pole internationally.

            b) They fight against opportunism and reformism, they reject the centre–left management and any variation of the strategy of stages.

            c) They defend the scientific laws of the socialist revolution. Based on those laws they assess the course of socialist construction; they seek to examine and draw lessons from the problems and mistakes.

            d) They have opened an ideological front against erroneous perceptions on imperialism, particularly those that detach its military aggression from its economic content, and against all imperialist alliances.

            e) They establish ties with the working class, they try to act within the trade union movement and the movements of the popular sections of the middle strata, they seek to integrate the daily struggle for workers’–people’s rights to a contemporary revolutionary strategy for workers’ power.

            We have set and struggle for specific objectives for the forthcoming period up to our 22^nd Congress. The new CC undertakes the task to study the exact condition of the ICM, as well as all the forms of cooperation, determining priorities and joint actions. This applies to the IMCWPs, the Regional Meetings, the ICR, the ECM, and our bilateral meetings.

            A special task for the new CC is the necessity to study and make comprehensive assessments based on the developments of countries where Communist parties in name continue to be in the leadership and originate in the tradition of the ICM, as it was formed during the past century under the influence of the October Revolution and the USSR.

 

DEVELOPMENTS IN THE DOMESTIC ECONOMY

 

            The international synchronized capitalist crisis of 2019–2020 had a decisive impact on the domestic capitalist economy. EU estimations of the depth of the crisis are around 8.2%, being significantly larger than the EU average, which was approximately at 6.6%. The pandemic acted as a catalyst for the acceleration of the outbreak of the crisis, even though its signs had already appeared in a previous phase. Thus, this development did not come as a bolt from the blue. The KKE had timely warned about the outbreak of a new crisis. It had underlined elements that attested to this direction, such as the weak recovery, the large accumulation of capital that was not accompanied by corresponding investments, and the negative consequences of the outward-oriented policy of the Greek economy (e.g. the large scale of the tourism sector), which, during the past years, was imposed by the ND and SYRIZA government, the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV), and the Bank of Greece as an important achievement after the crisis, while it substantially led to its greater exposure to the fluctuations of the international economy.

            The current crisis —as the previous one— manifests itself unequally among the various sectors of the Greek economy. It is accompanied by extensive destruction of invested capital in the sectors of Hospitality and Tourism, under the effect of the restriction measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, together with its centralization.

            The depth of the crisis in Greece was significantly restrained by the extensive state package of immediate capital support and the increase of state investments resulting in a slight increase in construction activity.

            The bourgeois management policy was differentiated in relation to the previous period. The ND government has now been turned into an implementer of an expansionary fiscal policy, despite its negative ideological stance towards a greater state economic intervention. On the contrary, the previous SYRIZA government belonging to social democracy, did not implement an expansionary policy due to the communal directions and restrictions during that specific period of its governance. The essence lies in the fact that both bourgeois political currents, depending on the needs of the capital, implement alternately both forms of bourgeois management, without being hampered by their different positions on the role of the state in economic and social policy. Besides, this bourgeois ideological differentiation is also necessary for the alternate manipulation of the workers and the people.

            The economic recovery in 2021 will be significantly smaller than the 2020 shrinkage, while EU estimations indicate that the already high official unemployment rates in Greece will remain over 16% for 2021–2022; but in reality will be even higher.

            The recovery course is precarious. A series of factors can limit the predicted positive growth rates for 2021–2022. Among these factors, the following stand out:

• The mounting government debt due to the implemented expansionary policy, particularly in the case that the relaxation of the Stability Pact will not be large in scope and duration.
• The negative effects of the large state guarantees, especially as regards building loans, which are magnified with the Greek Asset Protection Scheme (Hercules).
• The uncertainty about the course of economic sectors such as Tourism.

            The recovery of the capitalist economy will not be uniform. The situation of a significant part of small enterprises has already deteriorated and it is estimated that the close-downs will amount to tens of thousands, along with an increase in the number of the unemployed, while another part will take on huge liabilities once the temporary measures of state support are reduced or discontinued (e.g. suspension of payment).

            Extensive government expenditure will increase the budgetary burden and subsequently salaried employees and the self-employed will be called upon to shoulder heavier tax burdens for the necessary fiscal consolidation.

            The policy of cheaper labour force will be escalated by exerting pressure on the real average wage, which is expected to be reduced in many sectors due to teleworking and the regulation of working time as well as the reduction of the so-called “non-wage labour costs” and the new attack on insurance rights, on the conditions and the coverage rate of healthcare, welfare, and pensions.

            The bourgeois planning for the next period, either that of “Greece 2.0” of ND or that of “Greece+” of SYRIZA, focuses on the same sectoral priorities of the so-called “Green Digital Transition”, in the direction of the EU and international “Green New Deal”.

            Today, two diametrically opposite strategies are conflicting based on the criterion “development for whom?”—for the monopoly capital or the working class and the people? Which power and ownership do the people need? Development for which cause, for the needs and the interests of which class? For profit or the meeting of the workers’–people’s needs?

            In direct opposition to the capitalist attack, the KKE’s forces are at the forefront of organizing vanguard flashpoints of resistance and counterattack.

            We put forward the truly progressive struggle for the meeting of the contemporary people’s needs, the struggle for the disengagement from the EU and NATO, for the overthrow of the capitalist power.

            We strengthen the daily struggle against monopolies, the EU, and their governments, demanding the abolition of all anti-labour laws, both of the memoranda period and the period of enhanced surveillance and the pandemic, and all the laws related to the Recovery Fund.

            We struggle and militantly promote positions defending the workers’–people’s income, the improvement of the working and living conditions, the general reduction of working time and the establishment of stable working hours and holidays, the stable and permanent employment for all. We are at the forefront of struggles concerning the conditions and content of education and the right to public and free education for all; for the exclusively free, public, high-level, and contemporary health, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation services for all; for the protection of maternity; for the protection of the quality of life at workplaces and places of residence; for free functional green spaces; for measures and infrastructure to protect the life and health of the popular strata at workplaces and places of residence; for infrastructure and works against fires, floods, and earthquakes; for the safeguarding of the contemporary popular residence. We are at the forefront of the struggles for the rights of workers in the field of culture and of new scientists.

            The counterattack, which does not only include the forms of struggle and demands–claims, needs to gradually develop into a nationally coordinated and unified movement, as regards the joint positions and objectives; a movement in an anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly direction against the EU and NATO, with nationwide and uniform demands. This refers to a movement that decisively changes the correlation of forces within it and engages more and more people in its action; it repels and marginalizes as much as possible the obstacle of the employer and government-led trade unions, the anti-strike and anti-unionism laws, and any attempt to undermine joint action; it achieves gains and overall contributes to the improvement and change of the correlation of forces in the class struggle; it utilizes any difficulties or cracks in the bourgeois political system to enter a new phase of confrontation and conflict with the bourgeoisie and the organs of its power.

            Through the intervention of the KKE and the course of the class struggle, this movement will be able to deepen its orientation, to integrate the struggle for workers’–people’s problems in the struggle for workers’ power, for socialism.

            Only the KKE as a vanguard power and through its activity can guarantee such a nationwide and at the same time internationalist movement for the revolutionary overthrow, especially under future conditions when features of a revolutionary situation will emerge.

 

SHARPENING OF THE IDEOLOGICAL–POLITICAL CONFRONTATION FOR THE LIBERATION OF THE WORKERS AND THE PEOPLE

 

            The alternation of the SYRIZA and ND governments in the previous years proved that once again the liberal and social democratic parties are the two faces of Janus of the bourgeois political system. Each political party implements what the other could not.

            The alternation of governments is increasingly becoming similar to a relay race among bourgeois parties. Despite the ostensible and often sharpened war of words between the government and the rest of the bourgeois opposition, a climate of consent is expressed in several ways, for instance in the parliament with a joint stance towards draft laws of strategic importance and amendments, followed by compliments to one another for their legislative work.

            Today it is becoming clearer that the bourgeois parties show consistency in the basic strategic choices of the bourgeoisie.

            We assess the bourgeois parties based on their programme, their character, their activity, their support to the capitalist system, their regional and international alliances, their stance towards imperialist war, and their policy towards the working class, the popular strata, and the workers’–people’s movement. The differences between them may lead to tensions and in some cases may threaten the stability of the government; however, they constitute a buttress of the system and a factor that maintains and exacerbates the correlation of forces, seemingly appearing as an alternative choice, etc. They favour the seamless continuation and sharpening of the anti-popular policy by the alternation of either one-party or coalition governments.

            All bourgeois parties, first and foremost ND and SYRIZA, jointly adopt:

• The support to the economic recovery based on a plan of state intervention for “Green growth”, placing emphasis on the Energy sector (power transition–lignite phase-out, etc.). At the same time that they are allegedly concerned about the environment, they jointly vote for a number of draft laws with severe environmental consequences, handing over forests, mountains, seas, and free spaces at business groups and supporting relevant investments (e.g. in Elliniko), as well as commit crimes as regards waste management (e.g. the landfill in Fyli).
• The promotion of the so-called “digital transition”, that is, the utilization of digital potential in the structures and services of the bourgeois state, mostly aiming at facilitating business groups, tackling and repressing the workers and the people more rapidly and effectively, and intervening in the function of the mass movement organizations.
• The promotion of changes in working relations, with the main instrument being the regulation of working time according to the needs of the capital, including teleworking.
• The “active foreign policy” within the NATO and EU framework and the strategic alliance with the USA.
• The framework of important changes in the direction of a more organic link between the Municipal–Regional administration and the central organs and central state planning, based on relevant structural EU adjustments in the previous years that were also related to the operation of EU programmes. The special role they assume in extreme poverty and long-term unemployment management policies aiming at social consensus.

            The working class, the self-employed, the farmers, the women from popular families, and the youth are faced with new attempts of manipulation and deception, with the fostering of fatalism and illusions, with the dissemination on the one hand of cosmopolitanism and utopian perceptions and on the other hand of nationalist, racist, and anti-communist positions.

            The objective of this entire campaign is to hinder all tendencies of workers’–people’s radicalization, so that they do not meet with the anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly struggle, with the prospect of the overthrow of the capitalist system.

            They KKE bears the responsibility to wage with all its might a comprehensive, effective, and substantiated ideological–political struggle against:

‣ The attempt of the ND government in particular, of various bourgeois staffs, and of representatives of the capital to present the basic strategic choices of the system and the promotion of anti-labour restructuring as contemporary and progressive.

‣ The attempt to ideologically disguise the intensification of repression and authoritarianism, which expresses the overall reactionary tendency to shield the system against its own contradictions and contrasts as well as against predictions about growing popular discontent, on the pretext of ensuring “security” and defending human rights.

‣ The state and employers’ intensifying attempt to strengthen divisive forces within the working class on grounds of educational, wage, and age differences, of different ethnicity, religion, colour, and sex, utilizing in this direction new methods such as the widespread introduction of individual contracts and the regulation of working time.

‣ The attempt to restore the traditional bourgeois political and ideological divisions, such as “right-wing and anti-right-wing”, “conservatism and progress”, “centre-right and centre-left”, and “conservative neoliberalism and progressive anti-neoliberalism”.

‣ The position promoted by social democracy, namely SYRIZA and KINAL/PASOK, that a pro-people, “mild”, and “progressive” implementation of policies supporting the basic strategic choices of the bourgeoisie is feasible. The variation of this position expressed by MeRA25, which essentially detaches issues of money capital circulation from the capitalist ownership relation, elevates the issues of loan management–debts–currency exclusively to a question of EU policy, whereas in fact, it is a governmental policy aiming to secure a greater workers’–people’s consensus on these goals and the corresponding “social cohesion”.

‣ The essence of the Democratic policy of Biden in the United States, which is presented as a model for the “democratic reform” of the system, as well as of the social democratic governments in Spain and Portugal. We utilize European and international experience demonstrating that there can be no pro-people management of the capital’s anti-popular objectives.

‣ The effort of SYRIZA to utilize the people’s discontent and militant reaction against the policy of the ND government in the struggle for the change in government, while at the same time it presents itself to the bourgeoisie as a more useful and capable manager. We need to highlight its actions while in government throughout the period 2015–2019 that expose its current “pro-people” declarations. We also need to reveal its actions while in opposition: it supports the regulation of working time, the prerequisites of the commitments of the Recovery Fund, the —predatory for the people— plans of “Green growth”, the policy of involvement in imperialist plans. If despite its anti-memoranda bombast it had the effrontery to implement memoranda, we can imagine what it is going to do in a future government with declarations like the current ones.

Furthermore, the KKE with its struggle:

‣ Reveals the essence of SYRIZA’s political line, which can be also expressed by other, social democratic and opportunist, political forces. That is, a most comprehensive attempt to strengthen a current of social democratic renewal by taking advantage of popular discontent and the government’s decay, based on the most obvious effects of the pandemic.

‣ Comes into conflict with illusions about a consistent, pro-people, and “realistic” alternative proposal for the “democratic integration” of the EU, with “equal” accountability of the most powerful member states for budget deficits, as promoted by forces such as MeRA25. It also comes into conflict with theories about “debt-bondage” and “post-capitalism” that are supposedly responsible for the anti-labour attack, thus whitewashing the capitalist system. It comes into conflict with perceptions that essentially deny the struggle at a national level and consider the demands for the disengagement from NATO as outdated, promoting the objective of its “self-dissolution”.

‣ Opposes any version attempting to revive a new “left-wing social democracy”, a “SYRIZA of 2010 and 2012”, a “left-wing government” which supposedly “this time will not make compromises”, “will implement a genuine transitional Keynesian programme”, and “will oppose EU choices and thus pave the way for radical changes, even for a socialist prospect”, as stated by various opportunist forces.

‣ Firmly opposes far-right, nationalist, and fascist forces (e.g. Hellenic Solution, remnants of the Golden Dawn–XA, National Popular Consciousness–ELASYN, Greeks for the Homeland–GREEKS GTP, Free People), which, despite the conviction of the Golden Dawn, continue to be active. They are utilized as a strike force against youth mobilizations in particular; they foster obscurantism and irrationality; they seek to exploit the developments in the relations between Greece and Turkey and the Cyprus issue, the implementation of the Prespa Agreement, and the developments in the refugee issue to extend their influence.

 

            The call for joining forces with the KKE sets specific objectives. We seek to embrace thousands of workers from all popular strata, to inspire them with our policy, to strengthen our ideological–political ties, to invite them to join the Party in the daily struggle and all political battles (e.g. the parliamentary elections), in all forms of struggle such as strikes, rallies, and trade union elections.

            Our hearts go out to the thousands of Greek emigrants and other Greeks abroad, who are concerned about the course of the country and its people; to all those who live, work, and study in countries of Europe, in America, in Australia, etc. The KKE considers them first and foremost as workers, scientists, or students who have common interests, since they witness the difficulties and problems in other capitalist states. In contrast to the KKE, the bourgeois parties and their policies have always been against their interests and —as demonstrated by the issue of the voting rights of Greeks living abroad— they still approach them in an electoral, vote-buying manner.

            Through their activity, Greek emigrants can help in the recovery and class orientation of the movement in their country of residence, strengthening their ties with the workers’–people’s movement in our country.

            Today there are several workers and people, salaried employees, urban self-employed, farmers, scientists, intellectuals, and artists, who are increasingly concerned about the policy of ND, PASOK, and SYRIZA. They faced the consequences of a deep capitalist crisis, the political experience of the so-called “left-wing government” of SYRIZA, the old and new social democracy, imperialist competition and wars, the role of the EU, the IMF, and NATO. At the same time, they acknowledge and appreciate the Party’s role in the struggle, without perhaps being ready yet to adopt or agree on key programmatic positions of the Party.

            The KKE can and must approach all these forces. It must systematically discuss its positions with them, examine their own views and observations, and seek their action within the ranks of the labour–trade union movement and the social alliance, as well as in other militant forms of action. The KKE extends its influence in a more substantial manner using its policy and programme. This is a task that concerns all the leading organs of the Party, from the CC to the Bureaus of PBOs and all PBOs. Our positions, our elaborations, and the experience that we have accumulated constitute our assets and refute utopian perceptions about a transitional political programme and the possibility for a parliamentary government to open the way for the revolutionary process leading to the overthrow of capitalism.

            The KKE with its strategy, elaborations, and activity, contributes to the liberation of workers and people from illusions about the possibility of a pro-people policy by a government of “left-wing” or “progressive” forces, which, with the participation of the communists, would bring the people closer to a radical change. It refutes the ideological construct claiming that the KKE with its strategy for the overthrow of the capitalist system and the seizure of workers’ power does not offer, ostensibly, an “immediate political solution” in favour of the people. It highlights the historical and recent negative experience from the adoption of this policy throughout the 20^th century and the first decades of the 21^st century. What is more, the only thing that the line of “immediate political solution” succeeded in was hindering the workers’–people’s radicalization, the crushing of the movement, the integration of CPs in the system, and the loss of opportunity to conflict under particular circumstances.

 

            The KKE answers the people’s needs and problems with its position and activity for the revival of the class struggle, the regroupment of the labour movement, the social alliance that struggles to achieve gains and gathers forces in order to strengthen the struggle for the real revolutionary overthrow, i.e. workers’ power.

 

            The KKE today has, much more than any other period, strong evidence which is based on the experience of the Greek people, the peoples of Europe, and internationally. It can persuade, influence, make people reflect on how important is the daily struggle for the acute popular problems to be directed and included in the struggle for workers’ power, contrary to the notion of the so-called “lesser evil” that leads to the disarmament of the workers’–people’s movement, to retreat, and manipulation. It is necessary and valuable to highlight the historical experience, also through the study of the History Essay of the Party and other contemporary elaborations.

 

            The KKE does not underestimate the extremely negative correlation of forces. It elaborates the specialization of its strategy for the development of the class struggle per area, per section of the working class and the popular forces, focusing on the promotion and assertion of contemporary social needs, pursuing the following primary objective: the rising people’s struggle to improve the correlation of forces, which includes the rejection of “realism” of the incorporation and submission of the movement.

            As a Party, we need to monitor the whole intervention of the bourgeois forces in the Local Administration more systematically and in depth. Their activity must be targeted by the workers’–people’s movement and its demands. From this point of view, the Party’s Organs have increasing responsibility for a more substantial and comprehensive political guidance of the Party’s representatives in the Local Government bodies. Despite the negative correlation of forces, the elected communists and their associates fight for the relief of the popular families through the development of their struggle and demands.

            The rise of the ideological level of the Party, both collectively and individually, the continuous study and assimilation of the elaborations, the improvement of the political guidance work and the function of the PBOs, with a substantial strengthening of collectivity, criticism, and self-criticism, are basic preconditions to acquire greater capacity, planned and effective political guidance, and efficiency; to be able to jointly act with workers and people that do not agree with our Programme; to contribute to the organization of the struggle under all conditions, in turning points of either upsurge or temporary retreat.

            This is a key condition for waging the ideological struggle in the aptest and most popularizing manner; for encouraging greater popular initiative and militancy utilizing our positions and our leading vanguard stance; for building robust PBOs and KNE Organizations in all the crucial places of work and education, in important sectors, in working-class and popular neighbourhoods.

            Today, we can play a leading role, under better conditions, so that broader forces can understand the underutilized true power of the joint organized struggle of the working class, the popular sections of the middle strata, the youth, and women against the propaganda and policy of passivity, inertia, fatalism, integration, and all illusions that the capitalist system can be humanized.

 

THE PARTY AS ΤΗΕ GUIDE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY LABOUR MOVEMENT AND THE SOCIAL ALLIANCE IN THE STRUGGLE FOR SOCIALISM–COMMUNISM

 

            The 21^st Congress considers that the primary focus of our tasks in the following period should be the need for the Party —as a compound of theoretical work, political and mass action— to rise to the occasion, to strengthen its role as the true guide and organizer of the labour movement, of the revolutionary prospect for socialism–communism.

            To a certain extent, the progress that has been achieved under difficult, unprecedented, and complex conditions expresses a new level of theoretical and political maturation. However, we need to meet the demands set by the developments, to enter a new upward course, with the main criterion being how the KKE contributes to the preparation of the working class for its leading role in the overthrow of the capitalist system and the construction of the new society, i.e. socialism–communism.

 

NEW STEPS IN THE IDEOLOGICAL–EDUCATIONAL WORK AND THE COMPREHENSIVE PREPARATION OF OUR FORCES

 

            The theoretical, ideological, and educational work is a crucial element contributing to the acquisition of the dialectical materialist methodology of thinking and action planning.

            The continuous ideological communist educational work that is planned and integrated into the programme of Party activity is the foundation for the deeper acquisition or reinforcement of learning and mostly for the substantial assimilation of the main positions of our theory on the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism–communism, based on the conclusions of the ongoing relevant study conducted by the Party.

            We focus on the following fronts of the ideological struggle:

‣ The deeper understanding of the exploitative relation, of the contemporary forms that capitalist exploitation takes due to the application of new technologies and other methods of labour organization, of the mechanisms extracting and distributing surplus value, of the formation of the average profit rate, of the changes in working time such as its regulation, teleworking, etc. These issues must also be raised and explained in our articles, speeches, and public interventions.

‣ Our perception on the character of the cycle of the economic crisis in capitalism, the alternation of phases of recession and recovery, for which much but not adequate work has been done, since all these issues are related to the proper assessment of the various forms of bourgeois management. The struggle, based on the programmatic proposals and positions of the Party, against the main pillars of the national development plan, the “Green New Deal”, the highlighting of the essence of the consequences of digitalization and the transformation of the state and production on the people.

‣ Our perception of the socialist construction in the 20^th century, free from any embellishment by the generations that experienced it, at a time when the younger generations either lack full knowledge or are acquainted with the bourgeois approach, which contains many elements of distortion and anti-communism. We need to highlight the superiority of socialism, the causes of the overthrow of the socialist system, and mainly the causes of the dissolution of the USSR, which was the trailblazer of this first historical attempt to construct socialism, and the role and development of the CPSU.

‣ The enrichment of our study and positions as regards the developments in the bourgeois system, in the superstructure, in Justice, in Education, in the state, and in all scopes of the social, political, and cultural life. In particular, the highlighting of the social dimension and the phenomena of violence against women, of racial discrimination, etc. needs to be included in our ideological–political struggle. We need to elucidate our positions on the emancipation of women, on the decisive condemnation of any racist and intolerant aggression on grounds of ethnicity, colour, religion, sex, and sexual orientation. We need to confront the reactionary theories of postmodernism and the irrational, idealistic views on “social gender”, “gender fluidity”, the ideological construct of “human rightsism” which arise from them and influence people who are less well-informed on the scientific approach to this issue. These views have nothing to do with the militant collective defence of all individual and social rights and freedoms of the working class, of the people, of the youth and the women of a working-class or popular class position and origin. The highlighting of the social–class dimension of the above issues requires a study of their philosophical background, of their reflection on the superstructure, and their analysis in the light of the relationship between economy and policy.

‣ The elaborated promotion of strategy at all stages, in the daily struggle. The full awareness that each aspect of communist political guidance and activity begins from our Programme, our strategy. This has nothing to do with the sloganeering for socialism–communism and workers’ power within the trade union movement or other movements, often as the “culmination” of a detailed list of problems and demands for immediate action; nor, of course, with raising an acute problem and then looking for ways to politicize it, drawing an artificial connection between them, based on an established misconception which, in the name of linking tactics and strategy, in almost all cases turns into an amalgam of scattered immediate demands and strategic elaborations.

 

            It is necessary to ensure:

            The effective and targeted formation of the political line within the movement, based on monitoring developments, as was achieved quite well during the ten-year crisis period and was also reflected in slogans (abolition of the anti-labour laws of the memoranda, unilateral cancellation of the debt, disengagement from the EU with the people in power). In the phase of weak recovery, this was achieved through orienting the struggle towards the meeting of contemporary needs. In the pandemic, it was achieved through the combination of objectives that highlight the immediate need to strengthen state structures and all the facilities that the public health system must provide for free as well as the need for the requisition of the private sector, which simultaneously pave the way for reflection and struggle for more comprehensive social changes, for an exclusively free public health system, on the basis of the socialization of the means of production and the central scientific planning by workers’ power.

            The apt, well-specialized ideological–political confrontation with the other forces within the movement for its direction, its orientation, and the goals of struggle that it adopts.

            The regular monitoring of militant processes, the correct assessment of moods, the acquisition of new experience and knowledge, and the collective assimilation of the above at all levels, contributing to greater efficiency and to opening new paths.

 

WE STUDY OUR HISTORY, WE ASSIMILATE AND DEEPEN OUR POSITIONS AND ELABORATIONS

 

            The 21^st Congress stresses the need to reinforce the theoretical–ideological element in the function of all leading Organs.

            The organized self-education systems and the ideological lessons in Organs and PBOs are a basis for the leading organs and the PBOs to comprehensively discuss issues of the ideological–political struggle that result from our activity in a front of struggle or issues of topicality.

            Engagement in the deep theoretical–ideological discussion of all political and mass tasks requires corresponding time and preparation in each leading Organ. It requires the formation of preconditions for collective discussion, which will rest on the scientific and class-oriented preparation of the themes of discussion, based on the corresponding staffs of the Party. In this regard, the positive experience that has been gained from discussing articles published in “Rizospastis” and “KOMEP” in the Organs can be utilized, generalized, and extended to cover broader themes.

            We must decisively address the tendency, displayed especially towards the bottom of the Party, for our important elaborations and the rich practical experience that we have gained while waging the ideological–political–mass–trade union struggles to weaken, to be fragmented, to obtain a disjointed and occasional character.

            The ideological–political elaborations can function properly as the heart of our political activity only when they are harmoniously integrated into the discussion and the function of the leading Organs; when they are utilized in the monitoring of the developments, the political and mass activity, and the elaboration of the line of struggle. This issue concerns the function of the leading links from the bottom to the top.

            We examine our political guidance work under the light of the positive course of the Party, its elaborations, its initiatives; of the adaptation capacity it demonstrated at turning points, in the context of general political developments, and at sudden changes, where great difficulties coexisted with great potential. Such difficulties and potential, which set a higher standard for the leading capacity of the Organs, should give impetus to the PBOs in all spheres and particularly to the Party building, so that this work meets the need to advance the leading role of the Party within the working class.

            The elements that emerged in the quarantine period, under special circumstances (such as the utilization of Rizospastis, the political guidance work, the utilization of various means of mass propaganda) need to be generalized as a positive experience. We need to steadily pursue the decisive rise in the utilization and circulation of Rizospastis, of KOMEP, of the books published by Synchroni Epohi.

            The Sections of the CC and the auxiliary committees of the Regional Committees play a special and crucial role. Particular regard must be shown to staff them in a suitable and well-considered manner in order to combine learning with the experience gained from the movement.

            The new CC and the Regional Committees need to engage in a more decisive and substantial assistance to the PBOs through specific plans and collective discussion. The same applies to the assistance provided by the Central Council of KNE to the BOs.

            The new CC needs to circulate an internal memo to the Party Organizations, taking into account the new developments and the legislative changes that have been made by the bourgeois state in a number of sectors, together with instructions (political, legislative, organizational) concerning issues of readiness, vigilance, compliance with the Party’s operating principles against the class enemy and the attempt to undermine and attack the Party.

 

TIMELY AND SYSTEMATIC EVALUATION OF THE DEVELOPMENTS AND THE ACTIVITY OF ALL FORCES IN THE MOVEMENT

             The enhancement of the political guidance work of the Organs takes place through the greater development of the initiative of the Party Organizations for the development of the activity in the workers’–people’s movement. In this regard, it is necessary to develop a corresponding spirit of militancy, readiness, immediacy, and quick reaction in the face of developments in unexpected issues that arise. The leading Organs are directly assessed by their ability to form a political line based on our elaborations, to orient the intervention of the Party’s forces, to support them while waging the ideological–political struggle and tackling the efforts of the bourgeoisie, of the states, of its parties, and of the opportunist forces to intervene with the aim of hindering the struggle.

            At the same time, it is necessary to assimilate the criteria based on which we participate in initiatives, actions, and mobilizations that are organized at a local, sectoral or another level, where the correlation of forces may not be in our favour or that were not initiated by us so that the Party Organizations dynamically intervene in them. Furthermore, the Party Organization needs to be vigilant as regards the content and the development of the struggle and to examine our stance each time in a collective way.

            The new CC needs to pay attention to the utilization of the experience gained from struggles, to clarify the relationship between the Party and the trade union organizations, the organizations of the urban self-employed, of the toiling farmers, of the youth, and of women. It must clear up confusions that identify the work for politicization with a sloganeering of our strategic positions or the escalation of demands. It must also prevent activities of a higher form of mass organization (e.g. trade unions) from being mechanistically used in other forms of collective activity (e.g. Struggle Committees).

 

ENHANCEMENT OF THE GUIDING ROLE OF THE ORGANS AND CADRES

 

            The ideological–political education, the conveyance of experience, and the alternation and development of Party and KNE cadres are crucial issues for the very course and revolutionary development of the Party.

            We single out the key role of the Secretaries of the leading Organs, as well as of the other leading cadres of the Organs. Their role at the level of Sectoral Committees and PBO Bureaus is particularly crucial, as they are the crucial links for the reinforcement of the leadership capacity of the Organs and their Organizations as a whole. We believe that steps have been made, although not in a unified way, in the function of the key guiding link of the Sectoral Committees.

            We need to be more demanding as regards political guidance work, but without showing a spirit of subjectivity in explaining the phenomena and issues that arise in the Party’s daily work.

            The political guidance work needs to focus on the waging of the ideological–political struggle for all issues, the work for the mobilization of workers’–people’s forces, the penetration of the Party Organizations into a larger part of the working class, and the elaboration and formation of goals of struggle around which the rallying of forces in an anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly direction is achieved in the movement and, of course, around the Party. A special aspect of the political guidance work is the constant improvement of the financial work of the Party, realizing the new difficulties posed by the opponent.

            Those issues are a criterion for the operation and the content of work, the forms and methods, and the orientation of the Organs’ activity.

            A crucial issue is how our activity is integrated into a general work plan and schedule, which of course will be adapted to crucial issues that arise, to developments. A work plan that will find direct expression in the Sectoral Committee and the PBOs.

            The concept of planning should not be understood —especially towards the bottom, in the Regional Organs and the PBOs— simply as dates of mobilizations, campaigns, anniversaries and actions or specific events, such as the opening of schools, the signing of Collective Agreements, etc. The concept of planning must combine tasks, escalate activities, study, and specialize the general strategic tasks depending on the area of activity of each Sector and PBO. It should enrich and correct elements of the planning suggested by the above Organs, making creative proposals that are adapted to each specific area.

            The proper promotion of cadres, based on a specific plan and providing multifaceted concrete assistance, together with the deployment of the Party’s forces based on the experience we have gained over the years, are critical issues for the Party’s development.

            The new generation of cadres, particularly those who have emerged in the past 10 years, now have a better starting point, mainly in the sense that they begin the process of knowledge with further elaborated strategic positions, based on the new Party Programme.

 

            However, a more comprehensive plan to support new cadres is required, taking into consideration that:

• The most experienced comrades–cadres shoulder the responsibility to share knowledge and accumulated experience, not by pontificating or looking down on the new cadres, but by setting the communist example as equal comrades and educators, thus contributing to the demanding and lengthy work to convey the experience of the movement and overall the Party’s work to the younger generations.
• A systematic study on the conclusions drawn from the Party’s History is required, together with the organized support of the effort to assimilate its programmatic and strategic elaborations. This will address the fact that the younger cadres do not have direct experience in waging the ideological struggle for the formation of the contemporary Programmatic elaborations, an experience that previous generations possess. Confusions in the understanding of the concept of strategy will also be overcome, which does not only concern the final objective but a unified plan of confrontation with capital and its power. Today, this plan is served by the daily activity, the rise of the class struggle, and the theoretical —ideological and political— influence on the workers’–people’s forces and their movement.
• Deep knowledge, education, the formation of a theoretical basis, the observance of principles and values, constant vigilance and readiness are conditions for tackling the negative effects of the delay in the course of young people’s socialization due to objective conditions (labour relations etc.) and the limited experience from participating in the popular mass struggle.

            The support for the promotion of new cadres is also provided through the substantial improvement of the operation of the leading Organs in which they participate.

            In this regard, the necessity of alternating the allocation of tasks and the work of cadres is of particular importance, so that more wide and multifaceted experience is gained from different tasks and responsibilities.

 

We need to:

            ‣ Show attentiveness to the new cadres and support them, especially those allocated to the crucial link of Secretaries and Members of leading Organs. Through their Party Organization, they need to quickly gain a good insight of their area of responsibility, of the circle of influence, of society, of workplaces, of neighbourhoods, of the mass movement organizations.

            ‣ Steer the cadres towards a most direct involvement with the mass processes of the movement.

            ‣ Ensure a systematic and analytical discussion in the organs about the accumulated experience and develop a specific intervention plan so that new greater experience is gained and previous experience is better assimilated.

            ‣ Educate our cadres so that they further contribute with their opinion, with well-prepared speeches and contributions in the Organs and the meetings.

            Under the responsibility of the Regional Committees, we need to practically ensure the orientation of all the Organs and the Party’s forces, sectoral and area-based, to the work within the working class and its allies. This must find expression in the guiding responsibility for the formation of a comprehensive plan for this work.

 

WORK IN THE YOUTH–SUPPORT OF KNE

            There is an urgent need for the KNE to enter a phase of significant development of its forces, to reinforce communist educational work within its ranks. The KNE is the main lifeblood of the Party and its development is a precondition for securing its revolutionary continuation.

            Despite the positive steps taken, a unified plan of the Party and KNE’s Organs is needed for intervening in the youth, in the places of education and vocational training, in the working youth; for the development of the ideological–political and mass intervention around the issues of culture and sports that particularly concern the younger generations. In this regard, we need to continue the effort with the Youth Centres of Culture and Youthful Creation.

            It is the Party’s responsibility to decisively support the ongoing effort to intervene in children of younger ages. The steps taken in the previous years must be stabilized and reinforced. This effort needs to embrace even more children, supporting the formation and operation of groups in municipalities and cities.

            We need to intensify the effort to support the ideological–political and educational work in the ranks of KNE for the assimilation of the Party Programme, our elaborations, the historical conclusions, and our perception of socialism–communism.

 

WE FOCUS ON THE WORK IN WOMEN

            In the next period, we need to make more substantial steps forward in the specialization of the Party’s work in the women of a working-class and popular position or origin, for this effort to take on permanent characteristics in the Organs of the Party and KNE.

 

                 These steps must be expressed in specific directions, such as:

             ‣ To consider the recruitment of young women in the Party as a permanent index for the work on Party building.

            ‣ To show regard for the highlighting and all-round ideological–political and practical support of women cadres, especially the younger ones, in transitional phases of their life.

            ‣ To better orientate women members and cadres of the Party towards the work in the radical women’s movement. The members of the Party and KNE have the task to participate in the associations and groups of OGE, to struggle for the participation not only of Party supporters but of all the women that worry and are concerned about the impasses and the prejudice they face in their social life.

            ‣ To take ideological–political measures for the deeper assimilation of our perception of the women’s issue and its contemporary aspects by the Party’s forces.

            ‣ The communists need to be at the forefront so that the trade unions and the popular movement organizations adopt special demands and goals of struggle for women in workplaces, sectors, and places of residence.

            ‣ To struggle against various irrational and unscientific bourgeois and opportunist views regarding the women’s issue.

 

WE NEED TO MAKE SUBSTANTIAL STEPS FORWARD IN PARTY BUILDING

 

            The increase of the Party’s organized forces in mass workplaces, in all the sectors of salaried work, and among the urban and rural self-employed is a necessary precondition for the reinforcement of the Party.

            In the period up to the 22^nd Congress, remains the task of renewing the Party’s forces and increasing them according to class and age criteria, of developing the KNE and, above all, of the communist steeling of members and cadres of the Party and KNE.

            Party building has proved to be a very difficult task in the past years, particularly under these complex and difficult conditions. Most of the Party’s Regional Organizations waged a courageous battle, resulting in making up for the losses that we had in previous years; thus, in the past four years, we have had a slight increase in the organized forces of the Party and the KNE.

            The small positive steps that have been made both in the organizational development of the Party and in the improvement of its composition as regards workers, in the Party building in factories, large enterprises, and hospitals overall do not correspond to the paramount need for the regroupment of the labour movement, particularly under the current conditions of its retreat and the pressure from the bourgeois system to co-opt large sections of the working class.

            The constraints that hinder Party building due to both objective conditions and the intervention of the opponent must be taken into account, but they should not become an alibi for retreating in the face of difficulties.

            The promotion of the task of Party building is achieved to the degree that the leading Organs effectively combine a building plan with the effort to develop a broad ideological–political and mass work of the Party, both independently and within the trade union movement, expanding a political and trade unionist vanguard that rallies around the Party and its activity.

            The objectives of Party building need to be better linked with the plan for the deployment of Party forces, drawing on the experience of organizational changes and improvements that were made in the previous years, mainly in the direction of concentrating all forces at a sectoral and area-based level, in a unified plan that serves Party building in the working class, in sectors–workplaces, and also in allied social forces.

            This proved to be a process that requires constant monitoring and control by the leading Organs, clarity of objectives, calculation of all data, and not mechanistic moves.

            The new Central Committee, in consultation with the Regional leading Organs, must further elaborate several aspects —including organizational and practical ones— to achieve the objective of better coordination and joint action of the sectoral and area–production based Sectoral Organizations and PBOs.

 

TASKS UNTIL THE 22^nd CONGRESS

 

1. Completion of the second part of the Study on the class structure in Greece.
2. Study of main aspects of the greater state intervention (“Green New Deal”) for overcoming the crisis in the EU and the USA, i.e. the strategy of the “green transition” and the digital transformation of the economy and the state. In particular, elaboration of the implementation of the specific EU strategic directions in the Greek economy per sector and region.
3. The continuation of the research effort for the study of socialist construction in the 20^th century, especially in relation to the superstructure, the organization and function of the state of workers’ power, and the correlation with the developments in the economy: a) Completion and publication of the study on the changes in the Constitution about the establishment of the workers’ state, on the relations between the Party and the mass organizations or the changes in the Constitution of the USSR, etc. b) In the context of the publication of the new book series on Bourgeois and Socialist Law, to proceed with the critical examination of the theoretical discussion on Law in the Soviet Union. c) Enrichment of the above research with the experience of the German Democratic Republic and other countries of socialist construction.
4. Study of the experience of the 20^th century in relation to the workers’–people’s uprisings, armed movements, the formation or not of a revolutionary situation or elements thereof (e.g. the civil war in Spain, the Chinese revolution, movements in Southeast Asia, in Latin America, and also all over Europe); of the political line of the Communist International or centres of the International Communist Movement. To continue the effort to study the transition from capitalism to socialism in the 20^th century, researching all the factors: the material conditions (as well as the corresponding adaptations of capitalism), the outbreak of a crisis of bourgeois power, the condition of the revolutionary subject (the Party, the labour movement, and allied social forces).
5. Enhancement of the struggle against the bourgeois political currents (social-democratic, liberal, etc.) both in relation to the historical–theoretical depth of the studies and the substantiated interpretation and critique of their contemporary adaptations. Respectively, in the struggle against the opportunistic current.
6. Updating and publishing of the elaborations of the contemporary bourgeois state.
7. Contribution to the struggle against the opportunistic and bourgeois effort of “contemporary” interpretations of Marxism that obscure its revolutionary content, the significance of its principles, and its method based on the so-called “new” reading of Marx, setting Marx’s work against Engels and Lenin’s work.
8. Decisive strengthening of the struggle, providing assistance particularly to the KNE, as regards the bourgeois ideological attack (ideological constructions of post-modernism on self-determination and human rightsism, denial of the objective truth, etc.), as well as the content of educational process starting from younger ages. Enhancement of the cooperation and the joint planning among the Sections of the CC.
9. Intensification of the effort to deepen the investigation into the causes of the long-term retreat of the revolutionary labour movement, also in relation to the current enhanced opportunities of the bourgeois system to co-opt the working class; to better illuminate the increased demands for a more comprehensive ideological–political intervention.
10. Systematization and reinforcement of the Party’s educational system (inclusion of supporters and new members, further enhancement of the schools of Marxist education of KNE, the sectoral organizations, and the Regional Committees, as well as of the central Party lessons and seminars). Special thematic seminars on the history of the Party and other issues. Specialized ideological work, Marxist education according to the academic discipline of Party and KNE graduate–postgraduate students. Additionally, a specialized programme for teachers and artists.
11. Publication of Volume C2 of the History Essay of the Party on the period 1967–1974.
12. Promotion of the study for the period 1974–1991, with the ambitious objective to complete it after the 22^nd Congress. At the same time, stepping up the effort to publish the minutes of crucial Plenary Sessions of the CC or Conferences of the respective period. We should also proceed with the publication of the Official Texts.
13. The provision of decisive assistance to the KNE to successfully conduct its Congress based on its Statutes.
14. We should hold a special Summit of the new CC on the existing situation in the ICM and our relations with other Communist and Workers’ Parties.
15. We should proceed with the Scientific Conferences of the CC on literature.

 

JUNE 2021